{"id":87564,"date":"2026-05-13T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=87564"},"modified":"2026-05-12T00:36:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T04:36:34","slug":"the-worst-sec-ooc-games-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/05\/13\/the-worst-sec-ooc-games-in-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The WORST SEC OOC Games in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve covered the best SEC OOC, now it&#8217;s time to dig into the ugly. Thank god for ACCtion, or this list could&#8217;ve been worse! Jefferson Pilot and the CW wouldn&#8217;t even want to show most of these poor excuses for OOC games.<\/p>\n<h2>The WORST SEC OOC Games in 2026<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Our Sisters of The Poor Must Have Been Busy&#8230;SEC-ACCtion\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Well, at least we have the ACC. That&#8217;s got to count for something, right? No, we don&#8217;t think so either. These five programs play their ACC rivals year in and year out. That doesn&#8217;t take them off our naughty list for 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Gators<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Florida Atlantic, Campbell, Florida State<br \/>\nBilly Napier has to be angry. Ole Billy boy had to deal with South Florida, &#8220;The U,&#8221; and FSU in his non-conference slate. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cfb\/coaches\/jon-sumrall-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Sumrall<\/a> comes in and gets Florida Atlantic and Campbell.\u00a0 We here at Last Word would rather have the Gators&#8217; &#8220;state championship&#8221; tour than whatever we call this in 2026&#8230;but it kinda fits with the trend of the rest of the SEC-ACCtion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/01\/22\/rbu-is-back-in-athens-georgia-adds-phil-rauscher\/\" target=\"_self\">Georgia Bulldogs<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Tennessee State, WKU, Georgia Tech<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/05\/08\/georgia-florida-state-series-canceled\/\" target=\"_self\">Bless their hearts<\/a>. That&#8217;s all we had to say last week when Georgia announced they were canceling a home-and-home series with Florida State. Are the Seminoles great? Nope. But, they would be a helluva a lot more appealing than playing Tennessee State or Western Kentucky. Georgia used to help set the standard for what an SEC OOC schedule should look like. That is no longer the case&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/05\/10\/kentuckys-2027-recruiting-roll-continues\/\" target=\"_self\">Kentucky Wildcats<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Youngstown State, South Alabama, Louisville<br \/>\nWhat happened to #MACtion? Kentucky used to love scheduling two or three MAC teams in addition to its cross-state rival, Louisville. The Penguins and Jaguars don&#8217;t hit quite the same.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>South Carolina Gamecocks<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Kent State, Towson, Clemson<br \/>\nThank God for Clemson. Kent State is one of the worst teams in D1, and Towson is more known for lacrosse than football, despite playing in Johnny Unitas Stadium. Shane Beamer needs wins in 2026; that SEC OOC schedule is sure to get him at least two&#8230;but that might not be enough.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOB5eFz1EhO\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 8280px; aspect-ratio: 8280\/7048;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h3>Neutral Site Games Are LAME!<\/h3>\n<p>Veteran readers of the SEC Last Word coverage know that if there is one thing this writer cannot stand, it is neutral-site games. It makes no sense. College football games should be on campus. Tailgates and screaming fans are what make college football special. Playing in lame neutral-site NFL stadiums hundreds of miles from campus makes cents when we think of the cheques, but no sense when we question what we are really doing here.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2026\/05\/05\/2027-ole-miss-recruiting-class\/\" target=\"_self\">Ole Miss Rebels<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Louisville (Nashville), Charlotte, Wofford<br \/>\nWe can&#8217;t wait for the latest Lane Kiffin barbs when he comments on the Rebels&#8217; 2026 OOC schedule. It&#8217;s not great. Sure, they have Louisville&#8230; but it is in Nashville. The Rebels have taken the party from inside The Grove to The Vaught. But they have sterilized their homefield advantage by agreeing to play the Cardinals surrounded by bachelorette parties. Charlotte and Wofford are so bad that South Carolina has FOMO.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Auburn Tigers<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: Baylor, Southern Miss, Samford<br \/>\nAuburn almost made the nice list. Instead, an economic decision put them squarely on the naughty list. The Tigers&#8217; highlight of 2025, besides getting rid of Brother Hugh, was knocking off the Bears in Waco to kick off the season. This game should be played on The Plains this season, but instead has been moved an hour and a half east to Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The Benz is nice, but it should be reserved for the SEC Championship game, if that is even still a thing, not great SEC OOC games.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>No SEC, OCC Gold Star for You: Jefferson Pilot Wouldn&#8217;t Want These Games<\/h3>\n<p>Jefferson Pilot used to air SEC games at 11:30 am from the 1980s until 2008. Now, the conference has pivoted to ESPN and the family of networks. The following games will now likely air at 11:45 on &#8220;The Ocho&#8221; or SECN+, as the kids call it these days.<\/p>\n<p>Mississippi State Bulldogs<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: ULM, Minnesota, Tennessee Tech<br \/>\n&#8220;I don&#8217;t even think about you.&#8221; Don Draper really summed up how most college football fans feel about the Minnesota Golden Gophers. They are still a B1G and a P4 team, we think (if you are reading this, our editors confirmed.)\u00a0 Mississippi State needs to win in year three for Jeff Lebby. Because it&#8217;s been rather flat otherwise and lacking any key or signature wins. While these OOC games won&#8217;t give him any of those, they will likely buy Lebby and the Fighting Cowbells three more wins in 2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Missouri Tigers<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OOC Opponents: UAPB, Kansas, Troy<br \/>\nWell, at least we have The Border War. Lance Leipold has tried to resurrect the Jayhawk program, but it is proving challenging, difficult, and damn near impossible. That sounded like a perfect opponent for everyone&#8217;s favorite SEC Villain, Eli Drinkwitz, and his Missouri Tigers. What are we doing with Troy or UAPB? Getting wins&#8230;we guess. But that is not a thrilling way to get them at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Main Photo: Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve covered the best SEC OOC, now it&#8217;s time to dig into the ugly. Thank god for ACCtion, or this list could&#8217;ve been worse! Jefferson Pilot and the CW wouldn&#8217;t even want to show most of these poor excuses for OOC games. The WORST SEC OOC Games in 2026 Our Sisters of The Poor Must [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4424,"featured_media":87573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,35583,2,35573,35578,35579,35585,35586,17,35582,35577],"tags":[7159,5822,9113,495,149],"class_list":["post-87564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sec","category-acc","category-auburn-tigers","category-featured","category-florida-gators","category-georgia-bulldogs","category-kentucky-wildcats","category-mississippi-state-bulldogs","category-missouri-tigers","category-news","category-ole-miss-rebels","category-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-billy-napier","tag-eli-drinkwitz","tag-lance-leipold","tag-lane-kiffin","tag-shane-beamer"],"modified_by":"Kate Pearson Halyburton, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4424"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87564"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87575,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87564\/revisions\/87575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}